mefi-debunker / FrontPage Page history last edited by PBworks 10 years, 6 months ago OK, so the powers that be deleted the original AskMe ... still, they can't stop us: Password to edit this page is 'mefi', if you need it. ***Contributing editors take note: Please compose and edit your responses 'offline' in the plain-text editor of your choice. Composing in the online edit window locks everyone else out of the wiki page for the duration of your edit, until you hit 'save' and revert to the front page. If you use the online editor for too long, you may end up losing changes when someone steals the edit-lock from you.*** 10. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. True, assuming this refers to the QWERTY layout. source 11. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. 12. There are more chickens than people in the world. 13. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. False.

According to Crop Profile for Eggplant in New Jersey (PDF) from Rutgers University Cooperative Extension: "New Jersey ranks either third (2001) or fourth (2000) in United States eggplant production." 14. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched." False. "Squirreled" and "scraunched" are longer. -- 'Squirr-eled?' I call two syllables! 15. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20. False. Check out the clock in the kitchen during the car clean-up scene. -- Comment. Are numerous clocks set to 4:20 anyway as a motif? 16. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple. False (if "English" includes the version spoken in Scotland). "Hurple" means to walk with a limp. -- Comment. Certainly no word rhymes with all four. And if you pronounce orange as two syllables, then schwa words like "sponge" rhyme. 17.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt." False if you also include compound words such as 'undreamt' and 'daydreamt'. Otherwise, likely to be true. -- Comment. Likely true, although this is an archaic past tense and in OE there may have been other verbs spelt so. 18. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. False. The real Lincoln Memorial only has 48 states listed on it -- Alaska and Hawaii were not states when the memorial was completed in 1922. The $5 bill only includes a picture of the front of the memorial, which has 14 (Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, Nebraska, Colorado, and North Dakota). 19. Almonds are a member of the peach family. True. They are both members of the Rosaceae (rose) family, in the the subgenus Amygdalus of the genus Prunus. 20. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. 22.

The largest cabbage weighed 144 lbs. Unverifiable. Guiness lists the heaviest cabbage as weighing 124 lbs. 23. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. The Official Word List from Scrabble has some more words ending in -dous: apodous, decapodous, iodous, nodous, palladous, vanadous, and amadous, which may be unfair because it's the plural of amadou. 24. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula" - and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: "L.A." True. The California Historical Association confirms it (though I haven't checked the math). 25. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. 26. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. 27. Tigers have striped skin, not just stripped fur. True. Multiple sources confirm, including Wikipedia . 28.

In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. True for many, according to Ask Yahoo . 29. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. 30. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life." False. #berternie 31. A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. At the shortest, a dragonfly's life-cycle from egg to death of adult is about 6 months. Some of the larger dragonflies take 6 or 7 years! 32. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. Debunked on the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters, goldfish progressively learned and improved 33. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!) No matter what your sneezing style, however, Strauss said it is indeed possible to sneeze with your eyes open. "You can definitely override it if you want to," he said. 34. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world. 35.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. Untrue. Whilst the Speaker isn't allowed to take part in debates or ask questions, they do speak all the time: to restore order to the chamber, to annonce which members will speak next and to discipline those who break the rules. 36. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. Apparently true, though it was a vacuum tube, not a 'radar tube'. 37. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister. True. He is referred to as a Presbyterian minister in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article 38. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. Neither true or false. Some do have 336, while others have more or fewer. The USGA lists the Pro V1x , which has 332 dimples, as a conforming ball. 39. "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand. False.

Wikipedia: "The longest word typable with only the left hand (using conventional hand placement on a QWERTY keyboard) is tesseradecades or the more common but sometimes hyphenated sweaterdresses". 40. Many hamsters blink one eye at a time. 41. The inventor of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper. Wikipedia says that Crapper popularized the flush toilet, but did not invent it. 42. The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites. False. Wikipedia tells us that the average human sheds about 1.5 grams of skin per day, or enough to sustain only about a million dust mites. 43. Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A. 44. Whitby, Ontario has more donut stores per capita than any other place in the world. 45. Starfish have no brain. 46. Dolphins sleep with one eye open. True . 56. Women blink twice as many times as men do. False . Women in this study blinked more than men (especially women taking birth control pills), but not twice as often. 57.

A bowling pin only has to tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down. A lot of trivia sites list this fact, but I don't find any particularly convincing. The US Bowling Congress' equipment specifications don't say how far a pin needs to be tilted in order to fall over. On the other hand, it very precisely describes the geometry of a pin. 58. The first episode of Leave It To Beaver aired on October 4, 1957. True, per Wikipedia . Fake-out: unsold pilot "It'a a Small World" (with Harry Shearer as Wally!) aired on Studio 57 April 23, 1957. 59. Beaver Cleaver's locker number is 9. False . Wally's locker was 9, Beaver's was 214. 66. Click HERE for 99,999 digits of pi! Uhh... 67. A stretched out Slinky is 87 feet long. False, at least according to the Sydney Morning Herald of 17/06/06, which says that Slinkies are 20 meters long. That works out closer to 65 feet. 68.

An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes. Why the exact number? Other online sources suggest a nice round 30 minutes, but it seems that the precise time would depend on the individual. 69. Emus can't walk backwards. 70. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. 71. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. True. Wikipedia also suggests "troop" but "court" is spurious. 72. A group of whales is called a pod. Pod, yes, and school, herd or gam. (same wikipedia link) 73. A group of geese is called a gaggle. 74. A group of owls is called a parliament. Wikipedia says yes. 75. A group of ravens is called a murder. False: Wikipedia says false! It's an unkindness or a conspiracy. I believe that a bunch of crows is known as a murder. 76. A group of bears is called a sleuth. False (but close). It's a sloth. 77. 12 or more cows is called a flink.

Wikipedia does list it as a collective nound for cows but doesn't specify how many. Merriam Webster has not heard of it. This site agrees with the twelve or more, but I don't know how reliable that is. Don't know. It is worth noting here that collective nouns for animals are not officially recognized by any authority. Most of them are the result of a Victorian parlor game called " Terms of Venery " or "The Veneral Game", and, as such, are little more than clever wordplay. 78. A baby oyster is called a spat. The term 'spat' refers to yearling oysters . 79. Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down. 80. In the October 22, 1945 edition of Life magazine there was a picture of a chicken with its head cut off. It was alive too! True. He also has his own festival - 81. The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head. 82. Pinocchio was made of pine. False, sort of.

Collodi's original story just said he was made from "a common block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are put on the fire in winter to make cold rooms cozy and warm." 83. The largest pumpkin weighed 1262 lbs. False. The world record is 1469 lbs. Source . 84. A mule won't sink in quicksand but a donkey will. 85. More people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes. 86. Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery. 87. There are 22 stars in the Paramount logo. 88. The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime. 89. A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge. True. (I counted three of them to make sure.) 90. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. 93. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie. 94. The pound sign # is called anoctothorpe. Close. It's actually called an octothorpe. 95.

Maine is the toothpick capital of the world. Wikipedia says that Maine claims to supply 90% of America's toothpicks, but there is no citation. A Mainer is credited with inventing the manufactured toothpick. 96. New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states. Lambert Castle, Paterson, NJ - "The Bertha Schaefer Koempel Spoon Collection, consisting of over 5,400 individual pieces, is considered the largest grouping of its kind in the world" 97. There was once a town in West Virginia called "6". 98. Singapore only has one train station. False. It has only one intercity station, but an extensive metro/suburban rail system 99. The parking meter was invented in North Dakota. False , by Carl C. Magee, of Oklahoma City, Okla. in 1935. See #182. 100. Napolean made his battle plans in a sandbox. In professional war games, the term for a physical terrain model is " sand table ". Nowadays they use computers, of course. 101.

Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator. Allegedly (a consul, actually). The horse was [ Incitatus . But we can't know if he was mad, or mocking, or the tale was made up or embellished. 111. The average speed of Heinz ketchup leaving the bottle is 25 miles per year. 112. Hilary Clinton once said We are the President. 113. The percent of women who wash their hands after leaving a restroom is 80%. 114. The percent of men who wash their hands after using a restroom is 55%. 115. There are 333 toilet paper squares on a toilet paper roll. False. It depends on the brand. Seventh Generation, for example, has 260 sheets per roll. 116. The Eifel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it. 117. "Jaws" is the most common name for a goldfish. 118. On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles. 119. The average American eats 2 donuts a day.

Unlikely. One source claims national donut sales are 10 billion per year, which works out to about one every ten days per American. Another suggests 2 dozen per year, or roughly one every two weeks. 120. The longest word in the Old Testament is Malhershalahashbaz. 121. The longest time a person has been in a coma is 37 years. 122. Every minute in the U.S 6 people turn 17. 123. It takes the Where's Waldo artist one month to complete a drawing. 124. 2500 lefties die each year using products designed for righties. 125. A baby is born every 7 seconds. 126. 10 tons of space dust fall on the Earth everyday. 127. On average, a 4 year old child asks 437 questions a day. 128. Blue and white are the most common school colors. 129. Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year. 130. The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: What hath God wrought?.

Almost certainly false. He sent " What hath God wrought? " in 1844 from D.C. to Baltimore, but his first working model was 1836. He had a ten-mile circuit operating in 1837 according to patent correspondence . 131. The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: Watson, please come here. I want you. Well-known but wrong. The first time he was heard he said "Do you understand what I say?" Wikipedia 132. The first words spoken by Thomas Edison over the phonograph were: Mary had a little lamb Attested by Edison , years later anyway. 133. The three words in the English language with the letters uu are: vacuum, residuum and continuum. False. Also on the list are squush, duumvirate, menstruum, triduum, and muumuu, along with any number of different forms (plural, gerund, etc.) of the aforementioned. 134. A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestdestiny. His middle name is George James. 135.

It is illegal to ride a street car on Sunday if you have been eating garlic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 136. In a normal life time an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat. False. For meat, it's over 13,000 pounds, assuming around 195 pounds per year and a lifespan of 70 years. For peanuts, including peanut butter, it's over 400 pounds, assuming 6 pounds per year (warning: Excel file) and a lifespan of 70 years. 137. A new book is published every 13 minutes in America. 138. America's best selling ice-cream flavour is vanilla. 139. Americans eat 18 billion hot dogs a year. 140. Americans eat 134 pounds of sugar a year. 141. Every year the sun loses 360 million tons. 142. Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe. False. "That's stupid Daddy" My 9 year old 143.

You can tell if a skunk is about if you smell only .000 000 000 000 071 ounce of its spray. 144. Animal breeders in Russia once claimed to have bred sheep with blue wool. 145. Penguins are the only bird that can leap into the air like porpoises. 146. India has 50 million monkeys. 147. By some unknown means, an iguana can end its own life. 148. Americans spend around $3 billion for cat and dog food a year. 149. Pigs can cover a mile in 7.5 minutes when running at top speed. 150. You breathe about 10 million times a year. 151. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream. 152. The first non-human to win an Oscar was Mickey Mouse. False, at least in a literal sense. At the 1931-32 Oscars , Walt Disney received a special Oscar for creating Mickey Mouse. 153.

Lee Harvey Oswald was booked with mugshot number 54018. True. 154. The Gulf Stream could carry a message in a bottle at an average of 4 miles per hour. 155. The bullseye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground. 165. There are approx. 550 hairs in the eyebrow. 166. The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay. 167. The shell constitutes 12 percent of an egg's weight. 168. A squid has 10 tentacles. False A squid has 2 tentacles and 8 arms 169. A snail's reproductive organs are in its head. 170. A cow's only sweat glands are in its nose. Apparently true for most breeds, but the Brahman of India has them. 171. The word "AND" appears 46,277 times in the Bible. False as no version is specified -- That's not the same as false!

In any event, one frequency count finds 51,696 instances of "and" in the King James version, so it's possibly valid for some other translation. 172. The first word played in the Scrabble rules demonstration game is "horn". 173. The telephone's U.S. patent number is 174,465. 174. The typical person goes to the bathroom 6 times a day. 175. There are 17 steps leading up to Sherlock Holme's apartment. 176. When a horned toad is angry, it squirts blood from it's eyes. 177. Napoleon was terrified of cats. 178. The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint. 179. The typical American eats 263 eggs a year. 180. The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 by Laszlo and Georg Biro. 181. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. 182. The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935. True . Carl C. Magee, of Oklahoma City, Okla.

in 1935. See #99. 183. In 1961, an IBM 7090 computer calculated Pi to 100 265 digits. 184. The human body weighs forty times more than the brain. 185. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. 186. A person swallows approximately 295 times while eating dinner. 187. The oldest known vegetable is the pea. 188. Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes. 189. The avocado has the most calories of any fruit. False. A 1000+ pound pumkin has many more calories than an avocado. 190. The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia. True, the Zoo calls itself America's First Zoo. It opened July 1, 1874, 25 years before the Bronx Zoo. But private zoos were popular before that, the first one in Philadelphia opened in 1802 . False. According to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service , Greece is higher. 193. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. 194.

4000 people are injured by teapots each year. 195. The typical American consumes 27 pounds of cheese each year. 196. The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is feedback. 197. The ostrich has a 46 foot long small intestine. 198. The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states. False. North Carolina is first , followed by Minnesota. (1995 figures) 199. The most sensitive finger on the human hand is the index finger. 200. George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. False . He invented a lot of things to do with peanuts, but not that. Peanut paste was known before his work. 201. The typical hen lays 19 dozen eggs a year. 202. Stainless stell was invented by Harry Brearley in 1913.

Depends on what you mean by "invented:" "In the years 1904–1911, several researchers, particularly Leon Guillet of France, prepared alloys that would today be considered stainless steel." 203. A scallop has 35 blue eyes. False. Scallops can have more than 100 eyes. 204. The left leg of a chicken in more tender than the right one. 205. The only dog that doesn't have a pink tongue is the chow. False. The shar-pei has a blue-black tongue. 206. Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935. False. The Soviet Union in 1920 . Iceland was possibly the first Western country. 207. The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal. 208. The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey. 209. Russia has the most movie theaters in the world. 210. Albert Blake Dick invented the mimeograph machine. True , in 1884, based on stencil patents licensed from Thomas Edison. The A.B.

Dick company was in the office machine business until its 2004 bankruptcy . 211. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. 212. The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday. 213. An Oscar weighs seven pounds. False. It weighs 8.5 pounds. 214. It takes the typical person seven minutes to fall asleep. 215. Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer. 229. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different. 230. Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung. Definitely in America, but origin is disputed between LA's _David_ Jung and San Francisco's Makoto Hagiwara. The first fortune cookies exported to China were in 1992. 231. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. 232. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. 233. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. 234. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails. 235.

You blink about 84,000,000 times a year. False. There are only 31,536,000 seconds in a year which would mean 2.66 blinks per second, not to mention all the time spent with eyes closed sleeping. 236. In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word. False . It was an 1840s Americanism for "pantaloons" and considered "vulgar", in this context, "low-class". Only a vulgar "gent" would speak of "pants". A gentleman would speak of his pantaloons. 237. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans. 238. Every 45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States. 239. The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth. Close enough. I get 332,981.787 based on this . 240. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny. False.

An adult female ruby-throated hummingbird weighs 3-4 grams, while a penny weighs 2.5 grams. 241. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death. 242. The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used. Half true . E is right, but Z is last. 258. It costs $6400 to raise a medium size dog to age of 11. 259. Average number of people airborne over the U.S. during any given hour: 61,000. 260. 70 percent of Americans have visited Disneyland/World. 261. Intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair. 262. The youngest pope was 11 years old. False. The youngest pope, John XII , was 18. 263. Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country. 264. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet and was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications. 265.

Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches. 266. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only "mobile" National Monuments. False. The San Francisco Cable Cars are designated National Historic Landmarks, not National Monuments. Other moving National Historic landmarks include San Diego's Mission Beach (Giant Dipper) Roller Coaster and the former Presidential Yacht USS Potomac . Also, there are many National Historic Landmarks such as the tug USS Hoga that are still mobile, if not currently under their own power: 267. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter "uncopyrightable." 268. Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ? 269. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and learned how to walk up standard staircases. Claimed about certain firehouses e.g. but I don't buy it. Why not warehouses or stables, too? It was probably simply to save space. 270.

When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror. False (but...). Opossums mimic the appearance of a dead animal, including a foul odor, to distract predators. However, if you read further in that Wikipedia article, "The physiological response is involuntary, rather than a conscious act... In minutes or hours, the animal will regain consciousness and escape quietly on its own." This seems to fit "passing out" in my book. 271. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because, when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. 272. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 True. 273. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of unwanted people (without killing them) used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired." False. Probably an allusion to firing a gun. 274.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. False. The official parchment document was not prepared until July 19. Most delegates signed August 2. The last was Thomas McKean in 1777, probably when he entered the Congress. Britannica 275. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds. 276. David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know his voice was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie. True. The cast & crew nicknamed Dave Prowse "Darth Farmer" because of his West-Country accent. He's still pissed of about it today. 277. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. Undetermined.

A Pentagon historian believes that may explain why there are more bathrooms and water fountains than necessary. The number is being reduced during renovations. 278. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns. One gallon of fuel moves QE2 49.5 feet; with the previous steam turbine engines, one gallon of fuel moved the ship 36 feet. -- Comment: I believe the vehicle that carries the space shuttle to the launching pad at one time got six inches to the gallon. -- Untrue, per NASA, 42 feet per gallon. PDF 279. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado. True . Mt. Davis at 3312 feet is lower than the Arikaree River at 3320 feet. 280. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. What wouldn't be toxic if injected? Anyway, nutmeg beyond flavoring amounts can be poisonous . 281. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19.

You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar. 282. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-star Game. 283. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older. 284. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars. 285. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order. False now, but it used to be true . 286. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs. 287. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants. 288. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. 289. Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California. might be right. Reno is supposedly 119.8 degrees West and Los Angeles is 118 deg 22' West , according to those two sites.

290. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. This depends on what you mean by match . The match, in some form, dates back to the 6th century AD in some cultures. 291. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. 292. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. 293. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. 294. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. 295. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath. Technically true. You will pass out and lose voluntary control over the muscles impeding your breathing. But you can cause your death this way, say by having your head over a tub full of water when you do it. You'll still asphyxiate, but it will technically be death by drowning. 296. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. 297. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. Unknown.

The study claiming this has been discredited . 298. In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. 299. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. 300. Butterflies taste with their feet. 301. A cat's urine glows under a blacklight. True for many mammal species, including humans. UV also shows up other bodily fluids including sweat and semen. Don't take one to a hotel. 302. The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone. 303. The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. True for the King James Version, but not necessarily other sources and translations. 304. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. False. I count 462. 305. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. Basically false. There are five known drafts or copies. The "Bliss Copy" is the standard used at the Lincoln Memorial and in most textbooks, and has 272 words. The shortest is 239 words. 306.

A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words. Probably false: 314. The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles. False . The origin of the brand name is uncertain, but that isn't it. 315. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. 316. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. 317. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma. 318. American car horns beep in the tone of F. False, if only because better cars have two horns of different tones 320. 1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television. 321. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. 322. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older. False.

Wikipedia says: "Oaks grow slowly and usually don’t bear acorns until they are about __20 years old__. 323. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. Kind of. It used the first Universal Product Code which is a type of barcode. According to this page, the first barcodes were used on railway freight trains. 324. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache. True for english cards. The king of hearts is also known as the suicide king because he holds his sword behind his head 325. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight. True. The Boeing 747-100 model has a 195 feet wingspan. The first three flights at Kitty Hawk did not exceed 175 feet. 326. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class. Maybe true. I can't find anything concrete but there are hundreds of references to this story on the web, including in "trustworthy" places like the Boeing website 327.

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. True . All the planets orbit the Sun in the anti-clockwise direction (as seen from the Sun's north pole); but Venus is the only planet to rotate in the clockwise direction (also as seen from the Sun's north pole). This is known as a "retrograde" rotation, not to be confused with Venus's apparent retrograde movement in the Earth's sky. -- Uranus, on the other hand, has an axial tilt of over 90°, making it the only planet to rotate edge-on. 328. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA." FALSE, according to Sony's official history of the CD it was Billy Joel's 52nd Street 329. The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had. False. "It was in 1896 that Henry Heinz came up with ["57 Varieties" slogan]. This catch phrase had nothing to do with the actual number of varieties produced by H. J.

Heinz, though, which by then totalled over 60." #.2257_Varieties.22 330. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin. 331. Timekeepers have clocked the action in a 60 minute football game to actually be around 14 minutes. 332. The word "funky" appears in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. False. Search it yourself (warning: 2MB file!): -- Comment: funky for foul-smelling is attested to 1784. 333. A domestic cat has eighteen claws: five on each of its front paws and four on each of its back paws. True, at least for the three mongrel cats at hand 334. The tip of a whip makes a cracking sound because it is moving faster than the speed of sound. True 335. An ear of corn almost always has an even number of rows (twelve, fourteen, or sixteen). 336. Earthworms have five hearts. False. According to the wiki, they have five pairs of hearts . 337.

Whale vomit is used in perfume and the flavoring of dried fruit and tobacco. True. Ambergris. 338. All Polar bears are left handed. 339. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. Possibly true, false or outdated: 18 acres of pizza a day, approximately 43,560 square feet in an acre. Assuming approximately one square foot of pizza per pizza for simplicity, that's 784,080 pizzas per day. Considering an estimated American population of just under 300 million and its well known penchent for easily accessible junkfood, that number of 784,080 seems a little low - perhaps because it may be outdated. Anyone who wishes to refine or correct the math for the answer may feel free to do so. -- It is low. According to the National Assn of Pizza Operators , the figure is 100 acres a day, or 350 slices a second. It's probably still just a ballpark figure, though -- too round. 340. China has more English speakers than the United States. Maybe.

"In Asia alone, the number of English-users has topped 350 million—roughly the combined populations of the United States, Britain and Canada. There are more Chinese children studying English—about 100 million—than there are Britons." Newsweek By 2025, it will definitely be true. In 1993, it was not remotely true . 341. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. 342. If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white. 343. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. False They were invented long before . 344. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction. CIA world fact book says the population growth rate of China is 0.59%, and the population is 1,313,973,713. I make that an increase of 7752444 per year.

Assuming 3 per second, that many people would take only 29 days to walk past you in single file, leaving 11 months to watch the rest of the population. False. 345. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. 346. It is impossible to lick your elbow. With or without dislocating your shoulder (or heck, dismemberment makes this one easy). 347. A shrimp's heart is in its head. False. 351. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. 352. Rats and horses can't vomit. True for rats. 353. The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language. Uncertain. Cited to the Guinness Book (and "Ken Parkin of Teesside, England") in an Amazon review . 354. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. The first half is true .

it is also common to break a rib coughing. 355. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants. False, unless I totally suck at maths. Average rat reproduction data: Gestation: 21-23 days. Litter size: two to fourteen - average 8. Litters per year: Four to six litters per year. Reproductive maturity: 3 months old. 18 months = approx. 540 days = 1.5 years. 1.5 years = approx. 6-9 primary litters. Say, a generous 8 for simplicity. In 18 months, 8 primary litters of 8 kits each = 64 primary kits, with the first litter available to gestate at 3 months, the second primary litter at around 6 months, etc. Which gives us about 6 generations in 18 months. So, assuming equal male/female ratios - the seed breeding pair of 2 becomes 10 total rats in the first month with 5 available breeding pairs including the seed pair - (Gen 1).

5 breeding pairs of rats becomes 40 secondary kits, or 50 total rats or 25 breeding pairs - (Gen 2). Which yields 200 kits, or 250 total rats, or 125 breeding pairs - (Gen 3). Which yields 1000 kits, 1250 total rats and 625 breeding pairs - (Gen 4). Yielding 5000 kits, 6250 total and 3125 pairs - (Gen 5). Which gives us a sixth generation of 25,000 kits, or 31,250 total rats. Though 18 months is well within the reproductive agespan of the initial seed pair, even with the most extreme cases of large litters, this wouldn't approach a million rats in 18 months - not to mention the availability of food, shelter, and a complete lack of a mortality rate. 356. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. 357. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 358.

23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks. 359. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders. 360. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. 361. A snail can sleep for three years. 362. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. 363. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. Everything I can find says it was invented by Harold P Brown, no mention of him being a dentist. They might mean Dr. Albert Southwick, who described a man being killed by electricity, apparently painlessly, and suggested it as a means of execution. False. 364. "Typewriter" is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. I ran a perl script on /usr/share/dict/words, and got three 11-letter words: proprietory, proterotype and rupturewort.

Typewriter is joined by these other 10-letter words: pepperroot, pepperwort, perpetuity, pewterwort, pirouetter, prerequire, pretorture, proprietor, repertoire, repetitory, tetterwort. False. 365. "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. "Do." and "Be." are equally short. 366. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. The scaling between a doll and a human is arbitary. However, Barbie is offically play-scale, approximately 1:6. Barbies are 11.5 inches, mapping her to a 5'9" human. False. 367. The average fart travels over 16 feet when released. It's a gaseous diffusion. It doesn't travel so much as spread. 368. An ant can live underwater for over 14 days. I remember reading somewhere that ants cross rivers in a ball.

The ants constantly struggle to move to the top so that the time at the bottom is minimized, but some of them do indeed drown, and in far less than a day. 369. Camels have a straight spine despite their hump. True according to Google Image Search. It shows that the vertebrae under the hump are slightly larger, but the spine itself is straight. 370. In some places in Egypt it is free to use the restroom but you must bring/buy your own toilet pater. True, but misleading. There are public washrooms all over the world where you must bring/buy your own toilet paper. Cuba, for example. 371. The pickle while only containing 7 calories has no nutritional value. Dill pickles have more calories than sweet ones, which only have 6. False. A large pickle has 15 calories , including small amount of vitamins A and C, and iron. ***Contributing editors take note: Please compose and edit your responses 'offline' in the plain-text editor of your choice. Composing in the online edit window locks everyone else out of the wiki page for the duration of your edit, until you hit 'save' and revert to the front page.

If you use the online editor for too long, you may end up losing changes when someone steals the edit-lock from you.***

Question: True or False - Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphabet Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas?
Answer: False